The Powell Doctrine

Colin Powell’s late-term endorsement of Barack Obama has created quite a stir. Always one of the figures the media most likes to cover, Powell worked a small sensation on Meet The Press this Sunday, unburdening himself of a number of gold-plated catchphrases. On McCain: “almost every day there was a different approach” to the onset of the financial crisis. On Palin: “I don’t believe she’s ready to be President of the United States, which is the job of the Vice President.” He called Obama a “transformational figure.” He expressed “difficulty” with the idea of “two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court.” And he condemned Republicans, through the McCain campaign, for growing “narrower and narrower.”

On the right, some commentators have quickly dismissed the endorsement as a triumph of racial politics, or, as Michelle Malkin put it, a “triumph of hope over reality.” On the left, other observers warn that a right-wing attempt to discredit Powell as a traitor or sellout is already afoot.

The fact is that both of these lines of attack miss the plain, and unexceptional, truth about Colin Powell. And in so doing, they each amplify the importance of Powell’s profound and heartfelt but predictable and unadventurous endorsement.

Mark Halperin suggests that “Powell is a brand unto himself in American politics, and clearly transcends the media's tendency to hype endorsements over their actual importance to voters.” But the strength of Powell’s brand, and the enduring authority he’s maintained since leaving the Bush administration under a bit of a cloud, has little to do with transcendence and everything to do with conventionality. Powell is the very model of the conventional major general: he is an Eisenhower for our age, except without the suitably technocratic opportunity to run for president as a Republican in name only. It’s plain that Eisenhower’s Republicanism was as deep as his commonsensical desire to prevent a full generation of Democratic presidents (and win on whatever ticket worked). Like Powell, Eisenhower was above all a competent bureau head, the product of a world in which patient, detailed, mentally disciplined planning ranked supreme. It was easy for both men to recognize administrative leadership where it was due. And like Eisenhower, Powell doesn’t transcend hype: he flies under its radar; and it’s there — unlike, say, sitting before the General Assembly — that he’s most comfortable.

So Powell’s endorsement has to be read in the context of his basic disposition: measured, mannered, comprehensive, and conventional. It’s no surprise that Powell opened and closed his endorsement of Obama with the disclaimer that “Either one” of McCain and Obama, “I think, would be a good president.” And it’s even less of a surprise that Powell granted Obama the clear advantage on the attributes and talents that he cares about most: “a steadiness, an intellectual curiosity, a depth of knowledge, and an approach to looking at problems like this and picking a vice president that I think is ready to be president on day one, and also not jumping in and changing every day but showing intellectual vigor. I think he has a definitive way of doing business that would do us well.”

What’s a little more surprising is Powell’s more colorful language — specifically, his declaration that Obama is a “transformational” personage. But what’s most surprising is how much Powell dwelled on the transformation he’s judged his own party to have made. “It has moved more to the right than I would like to see,” he said. “Governor Palin has indicated a further rightward shift.” Here there are problems. Powell’s appreciation for Obama is really a product of his judgment that Obama will work less of a transformation than a reformation. The most reality-altering Obama gets, in Powell’s estimation, involves an “inclusive,” but not very revolutionary, belief that “all towns have values.”